Author Archives: Anne Petermann

by | 2015-01-06 · 12:00

Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director Anne Peterman on the GE American Chestnut

Protesters denounce GE trees at a meeting of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in 2011 (image by Anne Petermann/Global Justice Ecology Project)

Protesters denounce GE trees at a meeting of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative in 2011
(image by Anne Petermann/Global Justice Ecology Project)

The Global Justice Ecology Project’s Executive Director Anne Peterman was interviewed by Joan Brunwasser on OpEdNews yesterday on the dangers and drawbacks of the GE American chestnut tree being developed by researchers at SUNY Syracuse.

Is GMO Chestnut Tree Monsanto’s Trojan Horse?

Interview by Joan Brunwasser, OpEdNews. 5 January 2015

JB: You’re up in arms against the humble chestnut tree. You recently wrote This Holiday Season say NO to GMO Chestnuts , a strong OpEd piece against it. I admit that I don’t know much about this subject and many of our readers are probably in the same boat. Would you educate us on the subject, please?

AP: Let me be clear first that my background is in forest protection. I have been working to protect the forests of the Northeast US and the world for the last 25 years. I started working on the threats posed by GE trees in 1999 because I worried about their impact on forests. The further I dug, the more concerned I became. So when we talk about the American chestnut tree, we need to understand that this tree was once a key part of the forest ecosystem in the Eastern US. There is an understandably strong desire to return it to that ecosystem. However, I do not agree with replacing wild American chestnut trees with genetically engineered facsimiles.

The reasons for concern about the GE chestnut are many, but one of the main problems is that the GE chestnut has been engineered with foreign DNA from wheat, a process which damages the genome and leads to numerous mutations. This means the engineered tree will likely have unanticipated and unpredictable consequences when released into a forest ecosystem. As we’ve seen time and again with GMO crops, these unanticipated consequences can be very damaging to biodiversity and wildlife, not to mention people. Just take a look at the iconic Monarch butterfly–it’s population is crashing due to the chemicals applied in abundance to herbicide resistant GMO crops. These herbicides are killing off the main food of the butterflies.

Read the entire interview here

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Filed under Biiotechnology, Biodiversity, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Forests, GE Chestnut, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, GMOs, Uncategorized

by | 2014-12-25 · 12:10

GE Trees for Conservation? What are you Nuts?

Happy Holidays from the crew at Global Justice Ecology Project.  Below is a very informative piece about the follies of attempting to use genetically engineered trees for conservation, by Rachel Smolker, co-Director of Biofuelwatch and Steering Committee member of the Campaign to STOP GE Trees.

Engineering Chestnut Trees? Biotechnology Takes a Walk in the Woods

By Rachel Smolker, Thursday, 25 December 2014 , Truthout | Op-Ed 

As the holiday season approaches, I just can’t keep those traditional Christmas tunes out of my head: “Jingle Bells,” “Silent Night,” “12 Days of Christmas,” and of course “The Christmas Song,” with its famous opening line, “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”I grew up in New York. My family used to venture into the city during the Christmas season, and we really did purchase little bags of roasted chestnuts from street vendors. I just love the smell and the sweet, earthy flavor of chestnuts. Reminiscing about that led me to think about food, forests and GMOs.

 To read the entire article, click here

 

 

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Filed under Biiotechnology, Forests, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Greenwashing, Monsanto, Tree Plantations, Uncategorized

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by | 2014-12-23 · 10:18

Zapatistas Host Festival of Resistance and Rebellion

It is 21 years since the Zapatista Army of National Liberation rose up in Chiapas, Mexico encouraging the mobilization of people around the world against neoliberalism, or global capitalism. They have not gone away, but are continuing to organize in their communities alternatives to the suicidal dominant system.

Zapatistas host world festival of resistance and rebellion
By Leonidas Oikonomakis, December 21, 2014, Roarmag.org

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Corporate Globalization, Indigenous Peoples, Latin America-Caribbean, Rights, Resilience, and Restoration, Victory!

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by | 2014-12-19 · 16:00

GMO Chestnuts Draw Scrutiny this Holiday

Roasting-2

During the holidays, a time of the iconic roasting of chestnuts, scientists and activists are raising alarms about these efforts to genetically engineer and widely release GE American chestnuts into U.S. forests. Syracuse.com recently reported in “Breakthrough at SUNY-ESF” that researchers at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry are growing 10,000 genetically engineered (GE) American chestnut trees to be distributed widely when approved.

The GMO chestnuts produced by these trees would be a new GMO food when concerns about GMOs and labeling are mounting.

Continue reading →

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Filed under Biiotechnology, Bioenergy / Agrofuels, Biofuelwatch, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, Forests, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, GMOs, Greenwashing, Uncategorized

by | 2014-12-18 · 14:53

Photo Essay: The Pillaging of Paraguay

Woman holds photo of baby whose condition is blamed on agrotoxins, during rally in Asunción, Paraguay, 3 Dec 2014. PhotoLangelle.org

Woman holds photo of baby whose condition is blamed on agrotoxins, during rally in Asunción, Paraguay, 3 Dec 2014. PhotoLangelle.org

This powerful photo essay came out of a recent trip to Paraguay made by GJEP Board Chair and photographer Orin Langelle and myself to explore, with others from 5 continents, the root causes of the global deforestation crisis. Paraguay makes a good case study of deforestation and its impacts, as this photo essay demonstrates.

The Pillaging of Paraguay Photo Essay and Analysis

By  on December 18, 2014

“All signs show that Paraguay, both its territory and its population, are under attack by conquerors, but conquerors of a new sort. These new ‘conquistadors’ are racing to seize all available arable land and, in the process, are destroying peoples’ cultures and the country’s biodiversity — just as they are in many other parts of the planet, even in those areas that fall within the jurisdiction of ‘democratic’ and ‘developed’ countries. Every single foot of land is in their crosshairs. Powerful elites do not recognize rural populations as having any right to land at all.” – Dr. Miguel Lovera

Photographs by Orin Langelle. Analysis at the end of the essay by Dr. Miguel Lovera from the case study: The Environmental and Social Impacts of Unsustainable Livestock Farming and Soybean Production in Paraguay. Dr. Lovera was the President of SENAVE, the National Plant Protection Agency, during the government of Fernando Lugo.

To view the entire photo essay click here.

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Biiotechnology, Biodiversity, Food Sovereignty, Frontline Communities, Genetic Engineering, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial agriculture, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Pesticides

by | · 14:00

Greenpeace Chooses Marketing Over Ethics in Peru Action

Once again Greenpeace chose marketing over ethics in a deeply offensive and destructive action at a sacred site in Peru last week.

While Greenpeace ED Kumi Naidoo has made a videotaped apology for this action, I don’t buy it.

I personally witnessed Kumi’s questionable tactics at the UN Climate talks in Durban where he orchestrated a fake “arrest” with UN security so that the media would run photos of him being led out of the talks in handcuffs — another marketing ploy.  How do I know this was a fake arrest?  Because a colleague and I engaged in civil disobedience at the same action, refusing to comply with UN security, and were carried out of the talks and banned permanently from all future talks. But there were no handcuffs.

Kumi, on the other hand, worked hand in hand with security throughout the youth-led action to ensure the youth left in an orderly fashion.

For my report from this incident, read my post “Showdown at the Durban Disaster: Challenging the Big Green Patriarchy.”

–Anne Petermann, GJEP

Greenpeace May Have Permanently Damaged An Ancient, Sacred Site. Now What?

By Emily Atkin, Think Progress, 16 December 2014. 

Greenpeace International set off a firestorm in Peru last week, and not the kind it had hoped for. After a few of its members damaged, perhaps irreparably, one of the most important cultural heritage sites in the country, a debate is beginning over how to interpret the environmental groups offensive actions.

Read the rest of the story here

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by | 2014-12-15 · 16:00

Vandana Shiva responds to “Seeds of Doubt”

Last August, the New Yorker published an abusive attack on Dr. Vandana Shiva’s anti-GMO activism. One must presume that this widely circulated article “Seeds of Doubt” by Michael Specter was produced on behalf of the vituperative biotech industry. This may be old news to those of you that followed this story and the reaction by Vandana Shiva and those that share her values and vision.

Dr. Shiva penned a response that was not so widely circulated. Today, Independent Science News has re-published that response. We are pleased to share it with you. Help to get this message out there!

Dr. Vandana Shiva, headliner of UO sponsored Food Justice Conference.

Seeds of Truth: Vandana Shiva and the New Yorker

Dr. Vandana Shiva. Independent Science News. 15 December 2014

(A response to the article ‘Seeds of Doubt’ by Michael Specter in The New Yorker)

I am glad that the future of food is being discussed, and thought about, on farms, in homes, on TV, online and in magazines, especially of The New Yorker’s caliber. The New Yorker has held its content and readership in high regard for so long. The challenge of feeding a growing population with the added obstacle of climate change is an important issue. Specter’s piece, however, is poor journalism. I wonder why a journalist who has been Bureau Chief in Moscow for The New York Times and Bureau Chief in New York for the Washington Post, and clearly is an experienced reporter, would submit such a misleading piece. Or why The New Yorker would allow it to be published as honest reporting, with so many fraudulent assertions and deliberate attempts to skew reality.

Read the whole article here

 

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Filed under Biiotechnology, Corporate Globalization, False Solutions to Climate Change, Food Sovereignty, GMOs, Industrial agriculture, Monsanto

by | · 12:00

Lima Climate COP Fails (of course)

The biggest shame about the latest round of UN talks about addressing climate change that just ended in Lima, Peru was not that it failed, but some people actually thought something useful would come of it.

Global Justice Ecology Project only attended the UN Climate COPs from 2004-2011, when we quit them for good, as it was painfully clear from the onset that these were corporate-dominated trade shows designed to promote profit-making false solutions.

Fortunately, more and more people (except for the big green NGOs) recognize that these climate COPs will never get it done and are organizing peoples’ summits where grassroots climate activists, Indigenous Peoples and impacted community members can gather to discuss what to do about climate change from the bottom up, as with the Lima People’s Climate Summit last week.  The outcomes from this event are not yet available, but we will post them when they are.

Burning the Planet, One Climate COP at a time

Mary Lou Malig, Peoples’ Forest Rights, December 13, 2014

For the third year in a row, a typhoon wreaked havoc on the Philippines during a Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In 2012, during the UNFCCC COP 18 in Doha, Qatar, Typhoon Bopha, the strongest ever to hit Mindanao, the southern area of the Philippines, left more than a thousand dead and thousands more homeless. In 2013, during the COP 19 in Warsaw, Poland, Typhoon Haiyan, a super typhoon of levels never seen before in the Philippines, made landfall and devastated millions of families, displaced an estimated 4 million people, and, left in its wake at least 6,100 dead, making it the deadliest typhoon to ever hit the country. Storm surges brought by the super typhoon violently washed away entire communities. This year, 2014, during the COP 20 in Lima, yet again another super typhoon made its way to the Philippines. Initially a category 5 super typhoon, Typhoon Ruby, weakened to a category 3 once it made landfall. Its path however included the communities still reeling from devastation of Typhoon Haiyan the year before.

Although the Philippines is no stranger to typhoons, seeing 15-20 typhoons a year, the scale of these recent super typhoons hitting the country has inflicted damage never before seen. Scientists have been making these warnings for several years now, warmer waters and warmer air temperatures are combining to produce more volatile and extreme weather including super typhoons of record-breaking magnitudes. One would think that with the vivid and horrific reality of massive loss and damage in countries like the Philippines, happening exactly at the same time as representatives of 192 governments come together to discuss actions needed to address the crisis of climate change, that these decision-makers would at least be compelled to take genuine action. Instead, it has been the complete opposite.

Read the entire post here

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Filed under Climate Change, Climate Justice, False Solutions to Climate Change, UN, UNFCCC

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